Tony Mikes, Second Wind
Second Wind's managing director Anthony P. Mikes is a former advertising executive who spent twenty-five years managing and owning advertising agencies and graphic design studios. Mr. Mikes came to recognize the value of shared information as it relates to successfully managing an advertising agency. Second Wind (Mr. Mikes' second life in advertising) was the result.
Twenty-two years later, a thought leader and innovator, Second Wind is committed to providing world-class content, advice and services to help advertising, graphic design, marketing, interactive and pubic relations firms grow and succeed...in fact, to BE better. Second Wind can be accessed at www.secondwindonline.com.
Mr. Mikes conducts agency management workshops, serves as a management consultant to individual agencies, and has addressed many advertising associations and trade organizations. He is also a contributing writer to numerous industry trade publications.
Mr. Mikes shares his industry know-how monthly in The Second Wind Newsletter, an overview of the advertising and design industry from the smaller agency principal's viewpoint. You can read the compiled wisdom of Mr. Mikes in The Small Agency Survival Manual; LifeBlood: A 365-Days-A-Year New Business Plan for Small Agencies, and The Account Service Bible; all published by Second Wind Ltd.
Blair Enns, Win Without Pitching
Blair Enns’ mission is to change the way creative services are bought and sold, the world over. He is the founder of the Win Without Pitching movement, which is seeing increasingly specialized marketing communication agencies win more business without first pitching free ideas.
Through his global consulting practice Enns works with owners of advertising agencies, design firms and public relations practices to help them transform from a high-cost, low-integrity, pitch-based business development strategy to one in which the agency commands the high ground in the relationship and shapes how its services are bought and sold.
As a speaker and author Enns endeavors to continually question agencies and clients alike on the sanity of the historical pitch-based approach in a transformed and rapidly evolving marketing world. Beyond questioning, however, Enns offers an alternative way forward for marketing communication agencies, delivering a new set of protocols on how to build a client base without first parting with ideas or sacrificing respect.
Enns lectures widely, addressing advertising, design and public relations audiences throughout the English-speaking world including national conferences of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA), the Design Business Association (DBA-UK) and others. In March 2007 he was invited to address the Bureau of European Design Agencies (BEDA) on the subject of free pitching at their annual meeting in Berlin.
Blair Enns is author of the self-published Win Without Pitching – Sales Success for Marketing Communication Agencies, and author of the Win Without Pitching Newsletter. He has been published in Design Week magazine (UK – April 2007) and the journal Persuading (August, 2004, February 2005). His paper on Key Performance Indicators for Professional Practice Development was presented at the World Congress on Total Quality Management (2005).
Enns is a member of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants. He operates from a remote mountain location near the tiny Victorian village of Kaslo, British Columbia, Canada, where he lives with his family.
Catherine McIntyre-Velky, Persuasion Arts & Sciences
As one of the industry's leading experts on project management, systems integration and collaboration, Catherine establishes solutions that allow agencies to run as effectively as possible.
A project and creative services management specialist with over twenty years experience with some of the country's most dynamic companies, Catherine has built internal workflow structures for Wieden & Kennedy, Fallon, Arnold Worldwide and Butler Shine Stern & Partners, just to name a few. On the client side, Catherine worked at electronics giant Best Buy and has provided consulting services for Microsoft.
Currently, Catherine chairs the 4A's Project Management committee, is founder of the MSP Project Management Club, has hosted a number of key national online project management seminars, lectures at Miami Ad School and speaks at conferences around the country. She currently wears many hats at Persuasion Arts & Sciences and also runs McVelky Consulting, where she is available for independent assignments or consultation.